226 SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL LABOURS TO 1860. 



period with the elaboration of that apparatus into an 

 express -writer for our automatic telegraph system, 

 which was originally destined for the great Russian 

 lines, and came first into operation on the Warsaw- 

 St. Petersburg line in 1854. In this system the 

 messages were prepared by the so-called three -key- 

 puncher, whose object was to impress the Morse signs 

 on a paper ribbon, in which ./ by depressing the first 

 key a single round hole, by depressing the second 

 key a double hole, was cut out in the ribbon. The 

 necessary pushing forward of the ribbon took place 

 automatically, whilst the greater interval required for 

 the separation of the words was produced by the 

 depression of the third key. When in this manner 

 a message had been punched into the paper slip, the 

 latter was drawn along in the so - called express- 

 writing-transmitter by help of wheel -work between a 

 roller coated with platinum and a contact -spring or 

 brush. By this means the single holes produced a 

 dot, the double holes a dash at the receiving station. 

 As it turned out that ordinary magnets with iron 

 armature did not work quickly enough, we employed 

 for the relays as well as for the inkers light cores, 

 capable of turning in the stationary coils of the magnets, 

 which were formed of bundles of wires or of thin split 

 iron tubes, whereby the desired velocity could be 

 attained with certainty. 



Bain had as early as 1850 employed a perforated 

 slip of paper for his electro -chemical telegraph, but 

 he had no suitable mechanism for rapid punching of 



